In today's communication environments, instant messaging is commonplace. Users send messages to one or more intended recipients and expect that those messages will be delivered substantially instantly. Various mechanisms are used for instant messaging, including one or more instant messaging protocols, such as the SameTime protocol offered by International Business Machines Corporation or Instant Messenger offered by AOL. Other techniques are also used to send instant messages, such as pager gateways.
Although instant messaging is a common practice, frequently there are situations in which the message does not reach the intended recipient. For example, the messaging protocol is down or the intended recipient does not have access to the protocol sending the message (e.g., no computer access).
Thus, there is still a need for a capability that enhances the success rate with which an instant message reaches the intended recipient. A further need exists for an environment that is capable of providing a configurable and flexible delivery policy to be used to route messages to intended recipients.
Further, each instant message environment has its own interface that is unique to that protocol. In order to reach an intended recipient, a user must change the environment he is using in order to see the intended recipient.
Therefore a need exists to overcome the problems with the prior art as discussed above, and particularly for creating an environment where a user sees a uniform view of available users, with whom they may communicate using the instant messaging paradigm.